


Have to Wonder

by NorroenDyrd



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bonding, Confusion, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Inner Dialogue, POV Iron Bull, Post-Champions of the Just, Protective Iron Bull, Questioning, Qunari Culture and Customs, Romantic Fluff, Saarebas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 05:37:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12314808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: The Inquisitor is not just any Tal-Vashoth. She is a former Saarebas. And Iron Bull is not at all sure what to make of it, especially since she seems like such a decent person.





	Have to Wonder

The Iron Bull has to wonder what this is supposed to mean. About him, about Hissrad, about his role. Should he be turning himself in to the re-educators again once this Rift crap settles down? That is not… a very comforting thought; he somehow is not as ready to lunge in head-first, to have his brains set straight, as he was after Seheron. He has gotten far too used to the Qun being somewhere… out there, watching but not quite swooping in, like those smart-arse ravens Red uses for spying on people, while he is in here, kicking asses side by side with his men, with Krem-Puff, with… with the boss.  
  
Yeah, that’s what this whole brain-mess is about. The boss. No, wait - not ‘what it’s about’; ‘whom it’s about’. He knows he should probably refer to her as 'what' and ‘it’ - she used to be a literal it, a Saarebas, just look at those stitching marks around her mouth! - but he cannot. The boss is not an it; the boss is a she; a sweet, shy girl, a kid almost, with soft hair in a long fuzzy braid that keeps getting in the way when she does stuff, so that she has to toss it aside, murmuring something in mild frustration and blushing, and twig-like arms that she has a way of bending in the elbow and sort of waggling in front of her when she’s agitated, and these enormous blue eyes, real clear, sky-like, not what you’d expect a demon whisperer’s eyes to be.  
  
Now, a proper Ben-Hassrath would have wondered if it was a ruse, if she was putting on an innocent act to lull your vigilance and then unleash her ugly buddies from the other side on you - that’s what Saarebas do, after all, when allowed to speak and move freely. A proper Ben-Hassrath would have kept a close eye on her, in case she decides to turn on people, and warn everyone off coming into too much close contact with her. Bull, though, does the bloody opposite - he actually cheers for Blackwall and teases him playfully whenever he catches the fellow making saucer-eyes at the boss. It usually happens when she is doing stuff like picking medicinal herbs for the Chantry people, walking through a meadow with dandelion seedlings and dust motes flying all around her; the sight makes ole Beardy downright freeze up, drooling… especially when there’s backlight (someone really needs some release, and Bull hints at it, drawing many a flustered cough from Blackwall, exactly the way he would if, say, Kremsicle developed a crush on some pretty tavern wench, of the normal sort, not at all one that could turn out to be a desire demon in disguise).  
  
And just last night, when they were all returning from that creepy red templar place, he saw the boss stumble and let Blackwall catch her under the arm (as much as their height difference would allow him), and then cling to him like she was drowning in a river and he was some thick, fuzzy log she was trying to keep hold of in order not to get swelt away by the current.  
  
'I… I can still hear that thing’s voice in my head…’ she said shakily, tears streaking down her face. 'Its… coiling… harsh whisper… Trying to… become me…’  
  
'It would never become you, my lady,’ Blackwall replied, with ardent conviction. 'An… an evil thing can never become a good thing, not really… No matter how hard it tries’.  
  
She made a tremendous sniff and whispered a breathless 'Thank you’ - and what did Bull do? Did he put himself on high alert, being in the company of a Saarebas who had just gone through a textbook case of being tempted by a demon? Did he make a resolution to put her down once the Breach was closed and she outlived her usefulness - because who know what sort of… dark residue that bare-butt thing left inside her brain? No - he actually felt sorry for her! He actually thought to himself, 'Shit, poor kid, that must have been bloody terrifying!’ He actually… He actually reach for both of them, the boss and Blackwall, and pulled them into a hug, and announced that he was buying them drinks later!  
  
'You deserve it,’ he said, grinning and winking at the boss, 'After kicking that demon in the balls!’  
  
And then… Then he was the first to join the thunderous round of laughter (with a tiny, chortling contribution by the deeply flushed boss) when Blackwall remarked, 'I don’t think it had any’.  
  
And this is what troubles him. This is what makes him wonder.


End file.
